Modern data centers often include thousands of hosts that operate collectively to service requests from even larger numbers of remote clients. During operation, components of these data centers can produce significant volumes of machine-generated data. In order to reduce the size of the data, it is typically pre-processed before it is stored. In some instances, the pre-processing includes extracting and storing some of the data, but discarding the remainder of the data. Although this may save storage space in the short term, it can be undesirable in the long term. For example, if the discarded data is later determined to be of use, it may no longer be available.
In some instances, techniques have been developed to apply minimal processing to the data in an attempt to preserve more of the data for later use. For example, the data may be maintained in a relatively unstructured form to reduce the loss of relevant data. Unfortunately, the unstructured nature of much of this data has made it challenging to perform indexing and searching operations because of the difficulty of applying semantic meaning to unstructured data. As the number of hosts and clients associated with a data center continues to grow, processing large volumes of machine-generated data in an intelligent manner and effectively presenting the results of such processing continues to be a priority. Moreover, processing of the data may return a large amount of information that can be difficult for a user to interpret. For example, if a user submits a search of the data, the user may be provided with a large set of search results for the data but may not know how the search results relate to the data itself or how the search results relate to one another. As a result, a user may have a difficult time deciphering what portions of the data or the search results are relevant to her/his inquiry.